Alexander McCall Smith Quotes

I don't know if music can change the world overnight but I know that music can help someone make it through a difficult night.

The best music, you can seek some shelter in it momentarily, but it's essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.

A lot of songs are empowering because everybody who has been through a hard time in a relationship or in their lives can relate to it.

People have responded to my stories so well. They come up after a show and say things like, 'Your album really helped me,' or 'I have stage four cancer. I'm terminally ill.' Somebody told me it gave them the courage to die.

I have met women who said, 'I started reading you when I sat in the chemo chair, and it made me feel better.' That is as humbling as it gets, to know that you, in some way, made the worst day of their life a little bit better.

I have a fan who suffered with leukemia, and apparently, the only thing that helped him through that was my music, so of course that's the ultimate sense of achievement. It's an incredible feeling.

You probably can overcome what you're going through from listening to my music.

I've gone through some dark times, and at those times, my tattoos have helped and guided me through.

I get tons of messages every day telling me, 'Your music has provided me with answers.'

I think sometimes all you need is to hear someone else say the same thing that you're going through to realize that you're not alone. I try to put some sense of hope into the songs, into whatever the situation is so that it's not just dirt, drudgery and a life of misery.

Poetry can't cure cancer, but it can save your life until you die.

The comments I most appreciate come from ordinary readers who've happened on one of my books at some time of stress in their lives, and who actually credit the book with helping them through a bad time. It's happened a few times in forty years.

In the midst of hardship, it was the music that restored my soul.

There's been times when I've been standing in a line at a movie and someone's hit me with something really heavy about someone really close and how our music has helped them get through it. Even in our darkest moments we try and find something beautiful.

'Harry Potter' changed my life in more ways than one, and it helped me get through my mother's death.

And woven into the fabric of this harsh existence was music.

The best music is essentially there to provide you something to face the world with.

To think that my heart and my words and my music saved somebody's life, it takes a while to just sink in with me. But it proves to me that music is powerful.

I even got letters form kids in hospitals saying the music is what keeps them going, and that really touched my heart.

Music will bring you through... It brought me through.

We all have our things that we go through, and I wanted to be an artist that people could listen to and feel like they're not alone. I want to be empowering.

I tell women who have gone through cancer that healing from it requires receiving care, receiving support, letting friends and family rally around us. It is time to receive.

When I felt upset and lost, music always had the answer.

It's extraordinary to hear from people who are bereaved, or gone through a divorce, and they still take the time to tell me how a certain track or album helped them through tough times, or kept them sane.

I use my experience to comfort and support others for whom life has no hope.